Abstinence & STD Rates
        Sex In The News 2005

Teenagers who are making the pledge to remain a virgin until they are married are catching sexually transmitted diseases as often as those who don't pledge abstinence. According to a study of the sex lives of 12,000 teenagers, those who make a public pledge end up having fewer sex partners and get married earlier.

STD rates were also statistically similar for both groups of adolescents, and in some situations were higher for those who pledged abstinence, because virginity "pledgers" are less likely to use condoms. "It's difficult to prepare for sex and say you're not going to have sex," said Peter Bearman, chairman of Columbia University's sociology department.

Data from the study, presented at the National STD Prevention Conference, had been taken from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

The analysis found that in communities where there is at least twenty percent of adolescents who pledged to remain virgins, the STD rates for everyone combined was 8.9 percent. Even critics of abstinence-only education are seeing that the findings as evidence that adolescents benefit from sex education.

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